


Uncertain Mornings and Dim Lights

by GreenOnyx



Category: Wentworth - Fandom
Genre: AU, F/F, Rating for potential later chapters, just Screak domesticity and a baby, screak - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27611201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenOnyx/pseuds/GreenOnyx
Summary: AU: A continuation of "A Study in Incarceration and Freedom"Joan and Brenda have long since successfully black mailed their way into a small fortune and successfully escaped to Brazil. They build a life together from a chain of unusual circumstances.
Relationships: Joan Ferguson/Brenda Murphy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Uncertain Mornings and Dim Lights

For the first few years in Brazil, they had decided to lie extremely low. Rather than staying in Rio, a city nearly constantly infested with international tourists, they traveled south and lived in a small city called Torres. It was pleasant enough, and it certainly provided a good atmosphere for learning the local culture and language. But as far as Joan was concerned, Torres lacked sophistication. It had been a nice enough locale to spend their time while the buzz about the 'dangerous escaped prisoner' Joan Ferguson died down. But it was time to move on now. 

They had used most of the blackmail money to purchase a small, but very nice flat in Rio. They'd spent the last three years renting it out. Their funds were not completely replete, but they had a steady, established, substantial income now. They had hardly spent anything. Renting in Torres was cheap. Now they hada reasonable credit history and enough money to purchase a flat of their own in Rio. 

But as they packed up what few belongings they had acquired since settling in Brazil, Joan found herself a little melancholy. She was bored of Torres, that was certainly true. But it had become a calm and comfortable home. Their first home with their daughter. 

Katya was only nine months old. There was no way she would remember this place. Maybe that was part of why it was sad. Joan walked over to her daughter's cot and marveled at her tiny, beautiful face. She looked like Brenda. Brenda claimed not to see it, but Joan thought she was lying. The slope of that tiny nose was just the same. Katya's birth mother looked Brenda as well. It was what had drawn Joan's eye to her the day they met. It was kismet, seeing a young pregnant woman weeping on a park bench, a woman who looked very like her wife. Generally Joan avoided getting involved with strangers, especially emotional strangers. She just hated to see a face that looked like that looking so distraught. So Joan had approached her. She allowed herself to be gentle and maternal. 

The girl's name was Mariana. The girl explained, after some coaxing, that she had been kicked out by her boyfriend. He was the only reason she kept the pregnancy when she'd had the option to terminate it. And now he's gotten cold feet and didn't want the baby or her anymore. Silently, Joan pitied her stupidity. Catering to a man's whims was the very height thereof. Outwardly however, Joan showed her the utmost sympathy. Joan offered the girl their guest room while she found her feet. It was too soon then to express what Joan was really after. The girl seemed perfectly sweet, but she was undeniably insipid. Good looks had clearly excused her from her from needing to become very smart. 

Brenda had put on her friendliest, warmest facade when she came home and found the girl unpacking in the guest room. Behind the closed door of their bedroom however she gestured in the direction of the guest room and quietly asked Joan "What the fuck?"

"I felt for the girl"

"Did you? Well that's very sweet. Is she paying rent?"

"No"

"No? And why - may I ask - not?"

"You noticed that she's pregnant?" Joan opened 

Brenda looked like she wanted to quip, but she just sighed and put a hand in the pocket that she used to traditionally keep her cigarettes in. It was a nervous habit of hers. Joan continued "She doesn't want the baby."

"Bit late f-" comprehension fell over Brenda's face. 

"Exactly" 

"And have you discussed this with her?"

"Not yet. I thought I'd give her a few weeks to get used to us. See what lovely people we are"

Brenda scoffed 

"An escaped prisoner and extortionist"

"Yes, I thought we mightn't tell her about those details"

Joan said dryly. She watched Brenda mulling over the idea. They both wanted a baby. They'd discussed it numerous times. 

"Stop it" Brenda ordered

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me. Give me a fucking moment would you"

Joan made a bit of a show of taking a deep contemplative breath in and finding the wall to her left terribly interesting. It wasn't long before she felt Brenda's amused, if slightly fed up gaze on her. She looked over innocently. 

"Oh are you ready to talk to me now?"

"You're insufferable"

"You want to be the mother of my children, don't you?"

"Who's to say she wants a couple of old lezzos raising her kid?"

Joan smiled "She thinks we've got it right. No trouble from men in our household"

The next few months with Mariana were a test of Joan and Brenda's patience. She was not an ideal houseguest. She kept putting her feet on the coffee table, and her room was constantly a mess. Brenda insisted that it didn't matter. Joan plastered on a smile and agreed. There was a day when Mariana was out at work, that Brenda resorted to physically blocking Joan from going in to clean the room. Joan insisted she was doing the girl a favor. Brenda insisted it would be an invasion of privacy. 

Joan smiled thinking about the memory. Mariana was out of their house now, and all but out of their lives. She had decided not to see the baby, not to give herself a chance to bond. She seemed to know that motherhood was not for her. Katya stirred and began to fuss. Her little face scrunched up and she let out a wail. Joan stroked her cheek and tried to soothe her back to sleep by rocking the cot gently. It was having no effect. 

"What's the matter with you?" She asked gently, picking the baby up. A pat of her bottom solved the mystery. "You need changing, don't you?" 

Joan was slowly becoming immune to the self in her own mind that rolled its eyes when she spoke to Katya like this. After all, it was terribly important for a child's intellectual development to be spoken to. She changed and powdered Katya's bottom. As soon as the fresh diaper was secure Brenda poked her head in 

"Who's that fussing up a storm in here?" She swept over to the changing table and swiped Katya up. She pressed kiss after kiss to the baby's fat little cheeks. 

Joan left just long enough to wash her hands. When she got back she held them out for the baby. Brenda looked at her and backed away, her face playfully defensive 

"Tell mama Joan this is my time" Brenda said to the baby

"Your time? Perhaps when you change the nappy it can be your time" Joan reached for Katya again, but Brenda pretended to hop away, making a high pitched little noise and a surprised face at Katya. Katya giggled. So she did it again. And again. And again. The sound of Katya's laugh mixing with Brenda's was the most joyful, beautiful sound to Joan. She found she was prone to sudden tears at times like this. She felt foolish for ruining a perfectly wonderful moment with tears. Or rather, she had done before Brenda began reacting to them as if they were purely an expression of joy. Joan was glad for this assumption. Especially because it was untrue. 

It wasn't only joy. It was terrible sadness. The tears she found so surprising and unstoppable these days, when she heard her daughter laugh, or she sat alone feeding her baby and listening to her wife cooking dinner, when she found herself in some idyllic scene that felt stolen out of someone else's life, were tears of grief. She felt she didn't belong in this life. She knew that there were people everywhere who would gladly take it away. She did not expect it to last. And yet this was completely at odds with the new sense of stability she had found. She knew, knew in every cell of her being that this was her life, that everything before this had been an ugly lie. The result of a childhood botched by a violent, cruel man. His voice still echoed in her head even as she leaned in to kiss Katya's little forehead, and Brenda's cheek. "Emotion leads to mistakes" Mistakes were exactly what their family could not afford. 


End file.
